Tony Stewart was fighting mad because Joey Logano, trying to hold his position at the front of the field, blocked Stewart on the final restart at Fontana. The move broke Stewart’s momentum and cost him a decent finish.
On Oct. 7, 2012, at Talladega, Stewart tried to block Michael Waltrip off the final corner at Talladega. The move wrecked Stewart, Waltrip and half the field behind them.
“I was trying to win the race, and I was trying to stay ahead of Matt (Kenseth) there,” Stewart said at the time. “Michael got a great run on the bottom, had a big head of steam. When I turned down, I turned down across the right front of his car. A mistake on my part. It cost a lot of people a bad day because of it.”
Sound familiar? That’s pretty much the same thing Logano said on Sunday, after wrecking no one with the blocking move.
“I had to throw the block there,” Logano said. “That was a race for the lead. I felt if the 14 (Stewart) got underneath me, that was going to be the end of my opportunity to win the race, so I was just trying to protect the spot I had.”
Rodney Childers, crew chief for Michael Waltrip Racing’s No. 55 Toyota, a car shared by Mark Martin, Brian Vickers and Waltrip, posted the following on his Twitter account after watching a replay of the final 20 laps: “Tony is one of the best, but I have to say he tried to block us at Talladega in the fall and wrecked the entire field… That’s racin… I will just end it with this. If my driver didn’t try to hold his position on the restart for the chance to win, I would be really pissed.”
Enough said.
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